Avengers of Justice Islanders
by Hal-El of Krypton
Summary: While on a cruise with a middle school band, Caleb and his friends get hit with an interdimensional energy pulse amalgamating them with comic book characters. Now, stranded on a new island with unknown threats, can Caleb survive and get back home?
1. The Pulse

Not long ago, in a world almost identical to ours, people bustled about their lives. Always busy with some goal or another, or vacationing from that work. Some people hated the never-ending system or their current position and sought to seize their reality in their own hands. One day someone succeeded.

"What's wrong Caleb?" Ally asked.

Caleb had just finished unpacking his bags in his cabin for the cruise. It was going to be a long ride to Germany, and longer as their student band traveled to play in multiple countries. Now, Caleb leaned over the ship's railing, in his favorite leather jacket, staring into the water.

"Oh nothing," Caleb said, "I just needed some air. I've never traveled this far from home before, and definitely not alone."

"Don't be that way," Ally said as she leaned on the railing next to him. Her blond hair was whipping in front of her face so much, Caleb thought her face was beginning to look like a bowl of pasta, which he found amusing, "The cruise is only two weeks. We'll be back in Vegas in no time. Just try to keep your mind off home and you'll be fine. Have fun! Hey, did you see Ant-Man yet?"

"No," said Caleb, "I want to, though. My church youth group back home is going to go see it in theaters as soon as I get back. I heard there was a Spider-Man reference!"

"You want me to spoil it?"

"No!" Caleb and Ally argued over superheroes for the next hour on the deck of the cruise ship. So deep were they in an argument over whether or not Sony let Marvel use Spider-Man, that they didn't notice a pulse of energy heading for the ship. Most people didn't either. They moved about playing their games, discussing their various problems, issues, and interests when it hit them. And when they finally did notice, there was no escape.

The wave of energy was purple and HUGE. Like a massive wall, it seemed to extend up and to either side forever as is glided over the ship. Everyone on it felt it when it passed, getting knocked over, and knocked out as if a physical wall had hit them. Caleb and Ally were on the side of the ship that the pulse landed on first when it hit, the port side.

"Get out of the way!" Caleb yelled, as if one could get away from the pulse, and promptly collapsed from it.


	2. Tipping Point

When Caleb woke up the other people on the ship were just beginning stir. Bodies were strewn everywhere as people had passed out from contact with the pulse. Caleb was surprised that pulse didn't seem to do any damage to anything inanimate. Tables were still standing, even most cups hadn't fallen over. He looked around for Ally, who was still next to him. Shaking her he commanded, "Ally? Wake up!"

"What is it," she murmured as she rose to her feet. Looking around her she asked, "We've stopped moving. Are we in Germany already?"

"Really," Caleb told her, "Look around everyone got knocked out like us. I think the captain did too."

"That sucks. How are we supposed to perform on time?"

"Your priorities impress me."

"Thank-you"

"We have to do something!"

"Good idea." Ally, still groggy, pulled out her phone and to call someone as they walked to the center of the ship to find someone in charge. She had wanted to log on to the ship's wi-fi to do it, but her phone was dead, which was weird because it was at 73% when the pulse hit. Caleb found the silence of the ship a little unnerving. Only the rolling of the sea broke the silence. They walked around and couldn't find anybody in charge that had woken up yet. They tried opening doors that said 'employees only' to no avail. Eventually, they resorted to plucking keys off the sleeping workers. "Why don't we just wake one up?" asked Ally.

"What for? They won't know what's going on either, and then they'd stop us from going to find the captain or something."

Suddenly the deck trembled as though they were experiencing an earthquake. "I think something hit the bottom of the ship" said Ally.

CRAAAASSSSH!

The ship trembled again, but harder this time. Whatever it was that was causing it had broken the surface of the waters. The sound of crashing water didn't stop, though. Whatever had come out of the water was still coming out, and it was big. Ally and Caleb staggered to the edge of the ship to see what was going on. Before they could make it, the ship trembled a third time, and this time the port side of the ship began to rise dramatically. So much so, that everyone on the ship began slide to the starboard side.

Bodies, most of them still knocked out slipped into the water silently, but some screamed and flailed about. Caleb slid into a bunch of tables that stopped his path. "Ally!" He yelled, motioning her to slide his way, to safety. Ally had been close enough to grab the portside railing, so now she was hanging on to it for dear life. She shook her head in fear. "Slide this way! You be safe!" Caleb called.

Then Ally let go.

The ship perpetually tipped higher, so by the time Ally let go of the railing, she fell so fast that she knocked Caleb and the tables he was standing on off their perch. Now both were plummeting to the icy waters.


	3. Lost at Sea (New Years Special!)

Caleb and Ally hit the ocean waters with the other passengers of the cruise ship. It was so cold they felt temporarily paralyzed as they were submerged, and all the wind got knocked out of them. Despite this, they fought to return to the surface. Caleb had only two thoughts as he took a gulp of air; _"I forgot ocean water tastes gross,"_ and, " _friggn' cold!_ " Every second he felt he would drown. He kept kicking below him, finding no rest for his feet. Suddenly, the screams around him got louder. "The ship!" someone yelled.

Looking up, Caleb was horrified to find that the cruise ship, continuously tipping over, was now ready to flip over on top of the floating passengers. Mindlessly, everyone tried to swim away with their stiff freezing limbs.

KATHOOOOM!

Caleb flipped over and over under the water. He had completely lost track of Ally. Right when the flipping had slowed down and he thought he could swim to the surface, he was slammed face first into a huge rock. Caleb gave up. He had every last breath of air knocked out of him and he was beginning to gulp water. He expected to start floating off the rock and die but he was still pressed against it. The rock was moving. The rock was moving up! Caleb's face broke the water and he gasped madly for air.

Caleb lay there for what seemed like hours regaining his composure. He kept spitting out water, and gulping in air. At some point, he noticed that the rock had stopped moving. He got up on his hands and knees and looked around. His vision was still blurred but he could tell that he wasn't just on a rock, because it stretched out around him as far as he could see. Caleb was on an island.

Had the island lifted him out of the water? Did _it_ rise out of the water just now? Is that what flipped over the cruise ship? His mind was spinning like crazy and he wasn't sure if it was because he was recovering or that he still had too much water in his system. "Wait, that sounds stupid," he thought, "I'm mostly water."

Caleb chuckled. Now, confident that his returning sense of humor was a good sign he got up and decided to look for other people. When he did he noticed the tree. _Trees? If this place just came out of the water, how are there trees?_ He stopped asking, though, when he saw some of the huge rocks, including one he was standing on, dissolve into sand. Water from all over the island gathered together and collected into ponds and rivers. Deeper into the island, where the trees were, Caleb watched in amazement as the rocks had dissolved into sand, darkened into soil, and sprouted grass and all kinds of plants. The forest thickened and then everything stopped. For a moment, everything was still, and the Caleb heard birds chirp, and the noises of other animals fill up the forest.

"Wooow!"

"Crazy, right?" Caleb turned to see Ally standing not far from him by the water, hugging herself. She was still wearing her backpack on top of her long-sleeve blue shirt, and all completely drenched. He bet that _now_ she was regretting those short-shorts that she, like all the girls that day, was wearing.


	4. Finding Paul

Ally, now wearing Caleb's jacket, and a miserable Caleb trudged along the now sandy beach looking for more people. "It's weird that we haven't seen any sign of the ship yet," said Ally, "You think it sunk?"

"No way," Caleb answered matter-of-factly, "All of the doors were locked in the ship. You needed a keycard for everything. Therefore, too much air was trapped for the ship to sink so fast."

"But the island was all rocky, wouldn't it have stabbed the ship?"

"It didn't. It would have made a sound of bending metal but it didn't. The ship was just flipped, not sunk."

"How would you know what a stabbed ship sounds like?" Ally poked at Caleb. When he thought about it he didn't remember ever being on a sinking ship, but at the same time, he _knew_ that he knew what it sounded like when a ship's hull was pierced. Where did he learn that?

"I guess I don't," he responded.

"Hmf," said Ally, "Figures. You were just starting to sound all Sherlock Holmesy. Hey look at that!" Ahead of them, just arriving from the ocean was a friend from their band. He was soaking wet and still catching his breath, but that didn't stop Ally from running ahead and tackling him with a bear hug. "Paul! You're not dead!"

"Cough! *spat!* Cough!" Paul answered, "Let go Ally! Your killing me! Cough!"

"So, that's three of us," said Caleb, "Guys, we need to start considering the possibility that might be all of us." Kneeling beside Paul, Ally took off Caleb's jacket and wrapped it around him. She looked up at Caleb and stared daggers at him. "What are you talking about?" she said, "You said the ship didn't sink!"

"It didn't," said Caleb, "but remember that most of them were knocked out the way we had been. Without the prep of seeing the water, they probably drowned. Sliding off the ship sure wasn't waking them up."

"Don't say that," said Ally.

"Is there somewhere warmer we can get to?" asked Paul. He was still shivering profusely. Caleb scanned the area. Given the mission of finding shelter, it seemed as though years of practice and training were kicking into gear. He ran scenarios, compared nearby tree heights, ground foliage, animal noise pollution, and forest density. Again, he had to ask, where was this coming from? He had been a boy scout for three years but that couldn't be it. Since when did the Boy Scouts of America teach anything this useful?

"Head for those trees," Caleb pointed, "It's perfect. Go like ten feet in and it should be warm." Paul gave him a confused look but made no argument. The group walk away from the beach and into the woods just as Caleb had said and set up a shelter for the night. By now the sky had turned gold and light was becoming scarce. Caleb gathered some dry brush (it still astounded him that there even _was_ dry brush) then turned to Ally, "hand me your earphones."

"Yeah right," Ally retorted.

"Seriously Ally?" said Paul, "You said your phone was dead back on the ship, and by now it's probably fried."

"I need to use it like a string to help start a fire," said Caleb, "You'll get it back."

"Fine," said Ally, tossing it over, "but don't break them. I want them back for when we get rescued." Caleb agreed and tied them to a curved stick to make a small bow. Using the bow and the two sticks he began building a fire.

"Wow," said Paul, "You really seem to know what you're doing Caleb."

Caleb laughed, "I'm glad you think so. Batman would kill me if he knew it was taking me so long!"

Paul and Ally looked at each other in surprise. Together, they asked, "Batman?"


	5. Robin

"It's all fuzzy but I'm sure of it," Caleb explained. With the fire now built and everyone settled for the night, Ally and Paul demanded to know what Caleb meant by his comment about Batman. "I know I trained with Batman. I don't remember when, or how, but I remember things he taught me when I need them."

"But Batman isn't real," said Paul.

"Yeah, Batman's a DC character," Ally agreed, "How can you have been trained by him? Maybe you mean some _like_ Batman?"

"No, it's definitely Batman," Caleb confirmed, "Guys, I think that wall of energy made me Robin." Ally and Paul were stunned. They weren't sure what to say. So many crazy things had happened since the morning, but this sounded just too crazy. Yet, at the same time, a wall of purple energy _did_ just knock them all out causing an island to grow out of the water, knock over a ship, and randomly sprout life then dry it off as though it was always there. The day had been crazy, so maybe Caleb receiving a fictional character's memories or skills wasn't _so_ farfetched.

The group was silent as they all digested what was just said. "Ok," said Ally, "So what are you saying you are turning into Robin?"

"Not turning," said Caleb, "More like I've been merged with him, kind of like the way Firestorm works. He's there somewhere, but he's not me. I'm still me."

"Ok then," said Paul, "So, which Robin are you?"

"I don…"

Ally laughed, "Paul! I didn't know that you knew there was more than one Robin. Your growing up so fast. I'm so proud of you!"

"Um…thanks."

"Guys," said Caleb, "I don't know which Robin I am and I don't think it matters. We're stranded on an island that popped up in the middle of the ocean. I think my becoming Robin is a sort of gift. I got this fire started, didn't I? I knew where to set up a shelter. We should use this to survive and get home." The group agreed and promptly started off for bed.


	6. Crash Landing

The first morning on the island, the trio argued whether to permify their campsite or go look for more survivors. With a sense of urgency, Paul and Ally argued for searching the beach. Caleb, on the other hand, thought that this crucial morning would best be sent finding a food source.

"What good is a huge group of survivors," Caleb observed, "with no food to keep them surviving. We already know where the nearby rivers and ponds are, so water is fixed, but we need to find something to eat." However, no-one agreed with him. In the end, the group split up, and Caleb was left to go deeper into the forest alone.

Caleb marveled at how quickly the forest had grown to look as though it had always been there. The trees had just appeared there, but now they all seemed to vary in ages. The ground had been submerged in ocean water but was now dry and squirrels scurried around it. Squirrels…Caleb made a note to get to that later. First, he gathered dry and dead wood of varying sizes and plenty of dead leaves. Some he piled by the fireplace, and some he used to erect a better shelter. Once he had found some pieces of good size, he burned them into the sharpened knives and stakes. By this time, he was getting very hungry and he went out again to examine the berry bushes.

W-vw-vw-vw-vw…Boom!

Something large crashed into the trees some distance behind him. At first, he worried about the campsite, but he thought about the sound and noted that the object crashed too far to his left to have hit his campsite. Caleb ran over to the crash site and met Paul and Ally there.

What stood before them was a large military helicopter. The wing blades were broken, some stuck in the ground leaving a trail of kicked up dirt where they had sliced through. Some of the soldiers had fallen out the helicopter's doors but none were getting up. There was blood everywhere. The engine still smoked and whirred. Paul was the first to move. He stepped towards the helicopter carefully and climbed up to the large door which was facing the sky. Ally walked behind him with palms up as though she was trying to calm down a stray cat.

Suddenly, Paul jumped back and off of the 'copter. A tall white man also jumped out, panting like he had woken up from a bad dream. He looked around frantically at the kids, finally locking his eyes on Caleb.

"Biurrun?" He said, "Pablo Biurrun? Your one of the Pablos! You're…Andrew!" Then he passed out.

Wow, that was insulting. Andrew was his older brother's name.


End file.
